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European Jobs Monitor

The European Jobs Monitor (EJM) tracks structural change in European labour markets. It analyses shifts in the employment structure in the EU in terms of occupation and sector and gives a qualitative assessment of these shifts using various proxies of job quality – wages, skill levels, etc. Is employment growing relatively fastest in well-paid, mid-paid or high-paid jobs? The EJM covers all 27 EU Member States and is based primarily on analysis of the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) data. In June 2024, the EJM interactive dataset was updated to include the most recent annual EU-LFS data up to 2022 for all Member States, as well as for the EU27 as a whole.

Key messages

  • There were over 13 million more persons in employment in the EU27 in 2022 compared to 2011 and over 9 million of this increase was in well-paid, top-quintile jobs. 
  • 2011–2022 has been a period of employment upgrading in the EU as a whole and the majority of Member States experienced stronger employment growth in well-paid compared to low-paid or mid-paid jobs (only exceptions: Italy, Bulgaria). 
  • The EU27 female workforce has expanded faster than the male workforce notably in mid- and high-paid jobs.
     
Employment change by job–wage quintile in the EU, 2011–2022. The EU27 female workforce has expanded faster than the male workforce notably in mid- and high-paid jobs.

 

  • The COVID-19 crisis appears to have reinforced employment upgrading – by accelerating the growth in well-paid employment in the digital economy but also the contraction of lower-paid, in-person services employment. 
  • While nearly all of the net new employment over the last decade has come in services, manufacturing has also contributed positively to employment growth especially in high-paid jobs (science/engineering as well as business/administration professionals).
  • The share of employment in the EU27 that is ‘core’ or standard has been increasing. While there has been some growth in part-time employment, this have been offset by greater declines in self- and temporary employment and family workers. Nonetheless, non-standard employment has increased in well-paid jobs accounting for nearly one in three of net new top-quintile jobs (2.7 million of 9.1 million). Non-standard employment therefore has also been upgrading.
     

Methodology

The EJM methodology is adapted from the pioneering work of Joseph Stiglitz and Erik Olin Wright / Rachel Dwyer in the USA in the 1990s. Jobs, classified by sector and occupation, are ranked according to mean hourly wage; this classification is then used to study on a continuous basis the changes in the structure of employment in different countries, as well as at aggregate EU level.

European Jobs Monitor: Methodology

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